You’ve been hearing the term “Net Neutrality” for a while now. You sort of know it’s about keeping open access to the internet, for all. But you haven’t looked into the boring details because other people are taking care of that for you. Now… TODAY… is the time to change that.

The FCC is rolling back the Net Neutrality protections put in place during the Obama administration. Today is the day where the internet comes together to stop them. If we don’t, big cable companies (in other words, your internet providers) will control what we see and do online. Widespread throttling, blocking, censorship, and extra fees will follow.

What this will mean in the real world is an internet that ever-more-closely mirrors the extreme stratification we see offline. Small nonprofits won’t be able to get their messages out to donors and clients. Social justice activists will no longer have a level playing field to get the word out. And you–as a customer–will pay more money for an internet that is measurably worse than the one you have now.

So what can you do?

1) Take a few minutes today to really understand what we’re facing.

Watch and share the explainer video below

Visit Battle for the Net (if you don’t want to sign up for their list, just scroll down the page for tips)

Since this interview is about 20 minutes long, I guess that’s my 15 minutes.

We discussed the Component Based Design process, which we’re currently using at The Jewish Education Project. I’m the lead on a project where we’re combining our 5 websites into one, to better represent the full agency and the work we do. We’re working with Advomatic and Teal Media on the project and we expect to launch toward the end of 2016.

Listen using this embeded player, or subscribe in iTunes or on Android and look for episode #304: “Design on a Budget & Communications Mythbusters”

Component based design is a newer web design process used to produce a more flexible site with elements that can be rearranged and reused in various combinations. If you’re curious to learn more about it I recommend this episode of The Web Ahead where host Jen Simmons interviews Karen McGrane.

]]>http://kopperwoman.com/ive-hit-the-bigtime-tony-martignetti-nonprofit-radio/Who won the super bowl?http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/kopperwoman/~3/1mWfLkwHOSk/
Tue, 05 Feb 2013 16:49:25 +0000http://kopperwoman.com/?p=1592Some say the Ravens won. Others say Beyoncé. I think it was GlobalGiving with this tweet during the blackout:

Amplification rate: how many times did people share the content? (Measured by RTs): 84 RTs

Donation rate: were people inspired to give? (Measured by donations): 3 donations totaling $85 for the project

This was a real success for us in terms of those regular metrics but the real victory was the high-quality conversation rate and the mentions we had from people who liked the content. It helps establish the @globalgiving brand as relevant and fun, but with meaningful things to say. It was great to get some donations to the project, but that wasn’t our main goal.

Me: I agree that dollars raised is often not the most important metric when looking at the success of a particular social media effort. Did you generate new followers?

Alison: We gained 61 and lost 21 followers on Sunday, a net gain of 40 for the day.

Me: What is GlobalGiving’s decision making process on tweets–are you empowered to tweet at your discretion or do you need approval from anyone before you tweet? Do you have a Social Media policy you’d be willing to share?

Alison: There are four of us with access to the Twitter account and we’re all empowered to tweet at our own discretion. We communicate about it to make sure we don’t double-up. In general we have 1 person who’s officially ‘on’ during working hours but off-hours are anyone’s game.

It’s a small team that works very closely, and we have a strong shared understanding of our voice and actions on social media but not a written social media policy. None of us has to approve anothers’ work, but we do bounce ideas off one another frequently.

My colleague, KC Ellis Sledd (@kcesledd) sent that tweet then texted me right after as an FYI (which was good because I was also drafting something up!). She said afterward: “I think we’re lucky there’s no hierarchy or red tape in our team. It allows us to move quickly during a big pop culture moment that can pass just as quickly as it came.”

Me: With such a close-knit team I can see how it’s possible to do well without an official social media policy. Can you share any tips about how you ensure you’re successful?

Alison: It’s important that employees know and embody their organizations’ voice. There are many ways that we as a nonprofit could have responded. KC’s tweet was right in-line with the voice we aim for: “engaging, accessible, hopeful, curious, human, substantive, forward-thinking, smart and enthusiastic.” It came second nature to her to write something with a tone that said, “Hey, this is bizarre! While we’re all sitting here staring at a dark TV, you could do something fun and ironic that would help people!” It wasn’t a guilt-laden “You should feel bad you’re whining about the Super Bowl lights while people in India don’t even have power” message. That would have been off-brand for us.

KC’s quick reaction is a reflection of the time we’ve spent talking about our communications philosophy and crafting other communications to be in-line with our voice.

Hiring great people and creating a cohesive team with a shared understanding of your voice and goals on social media are key for nonprofits to allow them to take advantage of moments like this.

When I think about measurement I get excited. Maybe that’s just me, but you’re missing out if you don’t feel at least a tiny thrill when you think about the possibilities for your organization.

A moment after my initial excitement my head starts to spin as I think of how many different things I could potentially look at and how much information I need to have available and I start to feel stuck in a Catch-22.

Internal voice 1: “I can’t know how my audience would feel about X if I don’t have data on X already available!”

Internal voice 2:”How could I have known 2 years ago that I’d need to have information on X in my database?”

I don’t know what to measure because I don’t have “good” data available, and I don’t know what data to save because I don’t know what I’ll want to measure in the future.

How to make the voices stop and move forward? Start where you are with what you’ve got; it’s worlds better than not starting at all.

Friend at a small nonprofit: That sounds good and all, but can you be specific? My head is still spinning.”

On November 8 & 9 I attended the Visualized conference at the Times Center in NY. I initially thought it would be complementary to the Data Gotham conference I went to in September. Though there was an overlap in audience and goals, the overall philosophy and execution were a lesson in left-brain/right-brain opposites. The gorgeous venue, fancy food, lax time schedule and attention to presentation detail were more of what one would expect from the “artist” type, while the corresponding elements at DataGotham were more what you’d expect from the “number cruncher” type.

“Would you rather your work be beautiful or important?” is a polarizing question. Some some lean toward beauty and others toward gravity, but as usual I find myself in the middle of the gray area of “both and neither.” I see it as my calling to bridge the gap between these two world views. I don’t claim in any way to be alone in this endeavor, though occasionally it feels that way to me.

The line-up at Visualized was stellar, and I saw a number of presentations that blew me away. In this post I’m going to focus on the work of Santiago Ortiz (@moebio), who probably won the prize for most creative visualization. Next post I’ll look at some important visualization work that journalists are doing.

Santiago is a visualization inventor and developer based in Buenos Aires. He’s put together a visual interface of his personal database of links, images, videos, articles and more. The database itself is not notable in technology (he’s used Delicious to store his stuff over the years), but it certainly is notable in scope–10 years worth of research through wide-ranging disciplines. Here’s where the magic comes in: he built an easy and intuitive graphical interface that allows quick browsing through the intersections of his Venn Diagram of seven major areas of knowledge (art, networks, humanism, technology, language, science, and interface). You move the pointer over the blobby shape and you can quickly see how much information he has stored in that area.

It defies my powers of verbal description, so look at these two images. In the top one I’ve selected a datapoint called “Treemaps for space-constrained visualization of hierarchies”(whatever that is!). It lives at the intersection of art, networks, humanism and technology (dubbed “artintertechhumanet” in the bottom right). All the other dots are datapoints that fall into at least one of those categories. The column of icons on the left is a series of filters that can be toggled on and off. Want to only see video? Done.

In the second shot I’m using only the “institution” filter, and I see that the “Bestiario”lies at the intersection of science, interface, and art (“artintersci”). If I click on the Bestiario point, I’ll be taken to that bit of info.

The possibilities for a visual interface like this are mind-boggling, and they can live firmly at the intersection of beauty and importance. You can play with the actual interface yourself here (it doesn’t run well on my elderly Mac but works just fine on my fast new Windows machine).

]]>http://kopperwoman.com/visualized-part-1/Visiting the mother shiphttp://feedproxy.google.com/~r/kopperwoman/~3/NMZEblWUPp8/
Wed, 31 Oct 2012 00:53:45 +0000http://kopperwoman.com/?p=1312Though I’ve long socialized and worked online, I am for the first time in my life enrolled in a school program that is completely online. This has been more difficult for me than I imagined it would be when I first enrolled in the Predictive Analytics program at Northwestern. After all, in the time I was at Blackbaud I worked easily with clients and co-workers hundreds of miles away, many of whom I never met face to face.

I jumped at the chance to attend the 2-day September open house that Northwestern hosted for students in four online MS programs: Predictive Analytics, Medical Informatics, Information Systems, and Public Policy & Administration. Having the chance to meet other students face to face, hear from faculty, and see presentations from people working in the field was much appreciated.

The highlight for me was a talk by Bill Franks, author of Taming the Big Data Tidal Wave, who gave a presentation about how working with Big Data is different from our previous experiences of working with smaller sets. A tip that surprised me: “Much big data doesn’t matter. It’s like sipping from a hose. Let much of it go and reduce it to a manageable size.” He focused some on harnessing text data for analysis purposes (like Facebook or Twitter feeds), an area I’m planing to focus on myself. But whatever type of data you’re talking about, he stressed the importance of developing standards for format, input, and usage.

]]>http://kopperwoman.com/visiting-the-mother-ship/Data Gothamhttp://feedproxy.google.com/~r/kopperwoman/~3/ta7UNmNHSRg/
Tue, 16 Oct 2012 02:17:48 +0000http://kopperwoman.com/?p=802
Just so you’re clear on exactly who I am: I spent my birthday at the DataGotham conference and I was thrilled to do so.

There were many high points, but the most enjoyable part was Baratunde Thurston. That’s right, the author of How To Be Black and former Digital Director from The Onion did a little data-geek stand-up. Pure win.

What, exactly, was DataGotham? It was a gathering of people from the loosely defined “New York City data community”and included speakers from all over the spectrum. Almost all of them, from the CIA to foursquare to Artsy to Kickstarter mentioned that they were hiring data scientists; where else is that happening?

]]>http://kopperwoman.com/data-gotham/WTF is Predictive Analytics?http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/kopperwoman/~3/7sZ3peEfoV0/
Fri, 05 Oct 2012 17:59:58 +0000http://kopperwoman.com/?p=61Friend: I heard you left Blackbaud. What are you up to now?

Kopperwoman: Basically, it’s using data and statistics to make informed decisions.

Friend: [eyes glaze over] Math is hard…

I’ve had almost infinite variations of this conversation since leaving my job in May. I’m trying to figure out how to explain “predictive analytics” in a way that will keep non-geeks with me. I think that what I need is stories and pictures.

So I’m going to blog about my adventures in predictive analytics and how I think they’re of value for nonprofit marketing and communications. I’m going to do my best to be a storyteller. Come along for the ride if you want to learn with me; I’m in the MSPA program at Northwestern University if I haven’t already lost you.